


Red

by Lukita



Series: Boneyards and Shadows [1]
Category: Casino Royale (2006), James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen, Magic AU, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukita/pseuds/Lukita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There were always so many interesting things in grandma’s kitchen; teas to make a man tell the truth, knots to trip someone far away, and a cat that would tell her the perfect places to scratch."</p><p>The condensed life of Vesper Lynd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to kedreeva for beta.

“We’re the last, Vesper, my child,” her grandma had always said when her visit each summer came to an end. “And then our line will die with you.”

But she never paid any attention because she would be back next year, and there were always so many interesting things in grandma’s kitchen; teas to make a man tell the truth, knots to trip someone far away, and a cat that would tell her the perfect places to scratch.

Grandma tried to teach her the craft, but at four, five, and six, she was too young to understand the difference between foxglove and aconite or a slip knot and a figure eight.

“Green is growth, the first of spring; blue is the colour of ice, calculation, and distrust; and red is all consuming passion, it’s for love and vengeance.” Grandma’s voice was always warm, and she fell asleep to stories of cursed princesses and knights who slay them.

It all came to an end one summer when her mother walked in one night during storytime.

“A witch’s death curse is the most potent of magic, only a fool would kill a witch-”

“What are you doing?” her mother had cried in alarm, voice full of poison and scorn. “I thought I told you not tell my daughter those kind of things.”

“It was just a harmless bedtime story,” grandma replied primly. “And before you say one more word about _those kind of things,_ know that the gift runs as strong in her as before the last of the covens broke.”

“My child will never follow your unnatural way,” her mother replied before rousing her from bed and out of the room.

At the time, she was too young understand why her mother packed their things and left that very night, boarding the last bus out of Bristol. Too young to know that her grandma never approved of the wife her only child married, or the reason being that mother came from a long line of witch hunters. Some would only call it unfortunate that both her parents died in a car accident when she was eight, and she was sent to live with her uncle, who only saw her as a burden but kept her anyway even when her grandma vehemently wanted her.

“Cats do not talk,” her uncle hissed at her as she was being punished for lying. The belt whistled through the air and caught her bare legs, leaving red welts in their wake. “If you lie to me again, you will wish you had never been born.”

“You are the reason my sister died,” her uncle told her one night, voice slurred after the divorce papers were filed and he’d had too many drinks, “I told her that man was not good for her, and you’re just like him. Unnatural.”

She loved Maths because she could make the numbers dance. She still didn’t know how to brew teas that would make a man tell the truth, or knots that would strangle someone she cannot see, but numbers were magic in their own right.

She fell in love with a man who wanted something from her. They sent her a video of him where he begged her to save him, to say yes to whatever his kidnapper asked.

“Please, please I don’t want to die.” He looked into the camera, face bloody and one eye swollen shut. “Just do this, they promised to free me, I love you so much.”

Information to help finance terrorism for his life.

Millions of dollars and hundreds of lives, in exchange for one.

She begged for the life of a man she only just met, for no other reason than because she doesn’t want him to die when she could do something about it. Her life was never in the bargain. They taped her as proof of her betrayal of Queen and country. She was a woman walking around with a noose around her neck.

“We’ll be watching you,” the man who had introduced himself as Mr. White said at the hospital, before departing for places unknown, hand patting the briefcase that held the other end of her noose.

She drifted, counted the days, and then she fell in love with a man who gave her everything he had left.

For a time, she was happy. Her magic sang beneath her skin, and it was enough.

A text message in Venice tightened the noose around her neck, but she was a witch and even if she couldn’t kill her puppeteer with a knot, she hadn’t forgotten all the stories her grandma told her.

Red means passion, love, and vengeance.

Death curse of a witch.

Magic enough to protect the desperate man before her, who would never understand her reasons, but if there was one last thing she could do, it was for him to live. Madness and death for Mr. White and everyone else associated with him. They thought she was beaten and had nothing left. She was a witch, one with the strongest gift since before the covens broke, and the Lynd line ended with her.


End file.
